The Sundering (41 page)

Chenforce’s own point-defense lasers began their fire at oncoming enemy missiles, joined shortly thereafter by the bright lances of the antiproton beams mounted on the heavy cruisers. The mutually supporting fire wove patterns through the darkness like swords clashing in the night, impaling oncoming missiles with high-energy fire. Plasma flares dotted the night. A blazing curtain seemed to have been flung across half the universe.

Martinez shifted to a virtual display so that he could better study the developing situation, and found, as the system blossomed in his skull, that he now seemed to be sailing in serene silence amid a hellish scene of unspeakable violence. He shifted his perspective so that he seemed to be closer to the enemy, just in front of the advancing plasma screen. He had moved back in time as well, the time it took for light from this point to reach
Illustrious
’s sensors. Missiles leaped out of the screen on wild, frenetic dodging paths. Lasers quested after them. A pillar of light blazed off Martinez’s right shoulder as several incoming missiles were hit at once, a line of fury pointing like a long arm toward the frigate
Beacon
. Martinez realized that he—or rather his position in the virtual display—was about to be engulfed by blazing plasma and his view of the action turned to electromagnetic hash. He pulled back to zoom across space, and up time’s axis, in pursuit of Chenforce.

“Fire by salvo,” said a woman’s voice.

The flashes were continuous now, a curtain of sparks winking against the cooler background of expanding plasma. Against the pulsing background lights it was difficult to perceive one area as different from any other, and so it took him a few moments to see the looping coil of missiles that were again in pursuit of
Beacon,
all jumping out of the long arm of cooling plasma that he had noted earlier. It took another moment or two for Martinez to perceive that
Beacon
was in genuine danger.

His pulse thundered suddenly in his ears. Martinez banished the virtual display with an angry wave of his hand and jabbed with his thumb the bright square on his display labeled
transmit, all ships
.

“All ships: concentrate defensive fire to aid
Beacon
!
Beacon
is the subject of a focused attack!”

No sooner had defensive weapons begun to weave a pattern of protective energies near the frigate than
Beacon
’s own lasers struck an attacking missile a slightly off-center blow that sent it tumbling, spilling out a spray of antimatter that flung itself into space like beach sand being flung from the hand of a child. The result was a sheet of blazing particles drawn across the night, a sheet that completely obscured a pack of attacking missiles from the ships that were trying to aid the frigate.

Beacon
was on its own, and its trained Daimong crew destroyed four missiles before the fifth and sixth engulfed the frigate within their fireball. Martinez gave a roar of pure rage and smashed his couch arms with both fists.
“No!”
he shouted, then chanted, “damn-damn-damn” before realizing he was still transmitting to all ships, and angrily punched at the display to give himself a moment of private, scorching fury.

He had promised himself a one-sided victory like Hone-bar, where the loyalist forces suffered no casualties, and now he had broken that promise. The fact that he had not spoken the promise aloud in the presence of another person made no difference: the most important promises are those one makes to oneself. He wanted to seize Bleskoth by the throat and shriek,
You made me break my word!

It was the absence of
Beacon
within the squadron’s defensive fire pattern that caused the next casualty. Through the gap came one of the Naxid decoy missiles, now turned to an attacker with an overlarge radar signature. In spite of its being a seemingly easy target the missile led a charmed life, darting and rolling by pure chance behind plasma screens created by less lucky attackers.

Martinez wasn’t aware of the intruder until it got perilously close to
Celestial,
when it was destroyed by the light cruiser’s concentrated defensive fire at the last instant. Hard radiation slammed the ship, and the superheated fireball flashed toward its hull. Martinez shrieked out another long, frustrated string of
damns
as the cruiser disappeared into the burning plasm, and he turned his attention to the enemy with thoughts of revenge on his mind.

It was only then that a new realization dawned, that there seemed to be many fewer missiles in the display. The defensive batteries were picking the attackers off: no friendly ship was under immediate threat.

No new aggressor missiles had flown out of the plasm screen in the last couple minutes.
Why have they stopped firing?
he wondered, and then the answer dawned.

“My lady”—Martinez began, and then remembered he’d shut down his comm line. He called up the private channel between himself and the squadcom. “My lady,” he said after he made the connection, “I think the fight’s over. We’ve won. They’re all dead.”

His words coincided with one of the random course changes dictated by Starburst Pattern One, and as the engines cut and the cruiser rotated, Michi and Martinez stared at one another in the sudden weightlessness, floating in their cages, eyes locked, amid the sudden silence.

“Congratulations, my lady,” Martinez said. “It’s a victory.”

Lady Michi held his gaze for a moment, and then touched her transmit button. “All ships,” she said. “Cease offensive fire.”

Martinez went to the virtual view, and the first thing he saw was
Celestial
sailing out of the cooling plasma sphere, its engines still a brilliance in the night. A silent cheer rose in Martinez’s throat. The cruiser hasn’t been destroyed after all, and the propulsion systems, at least, still worked.

“Comm: message to
Celestial,
” Michi said. “Ask Captain Eldey for a status report.”

Martinez turned his attention to the Naxids. Their ships should be flying out of the cooling plasma cloud at any second.

The Naxid squadron didn’t come. There was one Naxid ship only, the cripple that had lost its engines on the approach to Okiray and was flying on a different trajectory from the rest. All the other Naxids had been wiped out, and Chenforce hadn’t even noticed when it happened.

The single surviving Naxid ship wasn’t capable of maneuver and wasn’t firing missiles—probably it had used them all up, except perhaps for a handful to be used defensively. It might well drift on forever into the cold gulf between the stars, like Taggart and the
Verity.

A suitable punishment, Martinez thought in his anger. Let them starve to death.

“All remaining missiles,” Lady Michi said, “target on that lone ship.”

From her tone Martinez knew she, too, was in the mood for vengeance, but that she thought starvation too good for the Naxids. Orders pulsed out to the remaining missiles from the last salvo, and these reoriented and began a furious burn for the sole remaining enemy.

The Naxids had to have known the fate that awaited them. Apparently they had no missiles, or at any rate no missile launchers that worked. Their point-defense lasers flashed out and the missiles began to die. Michi simply fired more. The lone survivors of Light Squadron 5 died a good half-hour after their comrades, after fighting with a bravery and skill that no other Naxid would ever see or celebrate.

Martinez watched the ship die without finding in himself the sympathy he’d displayed for the crews of the wormhole stations. The enemy warship was nearly as helpless as the relay stations, but it had helped kill a lot of his comrades, and he watched its death agonies with bitter satisfaction.

“All ships reduce deceleration to one-half gravity,” Michi ordered. “Prepare to retrieve pinnaces and remaining missiles.”

“Message from
Celestial,
my lady, by radio,” reported Coen. “Lieutenant Gorath reporting.”
Celestial
had remained silent since Michi’s initial query, though since the cruiser had continued to maneuver according to the dictates of Starburst Pattern One, it had been clear that there were survivors and that there would probably be communication as soon as the means were restored.

“Lieutenant Gorath believes that four forward compartments are breached,” Coen reported, “and that Captain Eldey and everyone in Command is dead. The ship is maneuverable. Lost sensors are being replaced. Communication and point-defense lasers non-responsive. One missile battery is believed destroyed, but it’s too hot to go out there right now to make certain.”

“Signal Lieutenant Gorath—Well done,” Michi said. “Tell her we stand ready to provide any assistance she may require.” She turned to Martinez. “Captain Martinez, please tell all ships to make a complete visual sensor survey of
Celestial
and send the results to Lieutenant Gorath.”

“Yes, my lady.” Locked in Auxiliary Command, the Torminel officer had nothing but remote sensors to inform her of the state of her ship, and most of the sensors had probably been knocked out. Pictures would undoubtedly help.

The squadron ceased deceleration, rotated, and began acceleration again toward Protipanu Wormhole Three, still nearly five days away, and then the crew stood down from action stations. The few surviving missiles were retrieved by the ships that had fired them. Of the fourteen pinnace pilots that had been shot into space to shepherd missiles toward the foe, eight weathered the battle, one of them
Beacon
’s sole survivor. These returned to their ships, all save for the deeply traumatized Daimong cadet who was brought aboard the flagship to replace a pilot who had been killed. The cadets’ berth would smell less sweetly, but Martinez suspected the cadets would not complain. They would know how easily
Illustrious
itself could have been reduced to radioactive dust cooling in the solar wind.

Martinez knew he would not enjoy seeing the
Beacon
cadet’s pale, startled face, though not on aesthetic or olfactory grounds. The Daimong would be a reminder of his own failure to protect the
Beacon
and fulfill his promise to himself of another victory without casualties.

Martinez left the Flag Officer Station, returned the vac suit to its storage closet in his quarters, showered, and dressed. The comm chimed with an invitation to dine with the captain, and he accepted.

In his head he kept seeing the arm of fire reach for
Beacon.
If he had been able to keep his mind properly focused on its significance he would been able to foresee the missiles that would have raced out of it, and had the squadron’s defensive fire ready to concentrate in that area.

Bleskoth, you bastard, he thought. The Naxids’ destruction of the
Beacon
was a personal affront. It was a deliberate attack on the value that Martinez placed on the quality of his own mind.

There was a soft chime from Martinez’s comm, and a light flashed on the display. It was a reminder he’d set for himself, and normally he would remember what it was, but now he was too tired for the recollection to come into his mind. He ordered the comm to deliver its message and was told that Wormhole Station 3 should at this moment have been destroyed, though it would take ten hours for the light from the explosion to reach
Illustrious
and confirm the kill.

The wormhole station had been destroyed hours before any of the light from the battle would have reached it. No observer would be able to send the results of the combat on to Naxas or to the Naxid fleet. They would have to wait for Chenforce to pop out of the other side of the wormhole at Mazdan, and even then they wouldn’t know
how
Bleskoth’s squadron had been destroyed.

With two of their squadrons annihilated, here and at Hone-bar, maybe the Naxids would start to suspect that the loyalists had developed a new superweapon that could stamp out large forces at a single go. Martinez tried to console himself with the grim hope that the Naxids would spend a lot of time and money trying to figure out just what the weapon was.

Alikhan arrived, full of praise for the behavior and skill of
Illustrious’
s petty officers and weaponers, then he helped Martinez change into full dress for the captain’s supper. At Fletcher’s table Martinez was placed between Michi and Chandra Prasad. Relief and victory made the talk loud and joyous, a joy fueled by wine and toasts offered by the officers. When it came time for Martinez to raise his glass, he offered briefly, “To our comrades on the
Beacon,
” and for a moment the cheer at the captain’s table ebbed.

For the rest of the supper he remained silent unless spoken to, and without difficulty ignored the press of Chandra’s leg against his own.

After the meal, Martinez returned to his room and tossed each item of clothing to Alikhan as he removed it. “The ship’s doctor brought something for you, my lord,” Alikhan said, and indicated a packet on the tabletop.

Martinez opened the packet and rolled a thick capsule into his hand, a sleepsniff. “Why did the doctor bring this?” he asked. “I didn’t tell him to—”

“He brought it on the squadcom’s orders, my lord,” Alikhan said. “She wants you to get a good night’s sleep. She told me I’m not to disturb you in the morning until you call for me.”

Martinez looked at the object in his hand.

“You and Lady Michi, I think you’re a good team,” Alikhan said.

Without words, Martinez raised the sleepsniff in his two hands and broke the capsule under his nose. The bitter taste of the drug coated the back of his throat as he inhaled.

“You’ve been very busy these last days, my lord,” Alikhan said as he collected the broken capsule and dropped it in the cabin’s waste slot. “I’ll bet you haven’t even taken a look at the Maw.”

“The Maw?” Martinez repeated dumbly. He could already feel the drug stealing over his mind.

“I’ve always found it an impressive sight,” Alikhan said. “I’m sure you remember from when
Corona
was in the system.” He turned on the video over Martinez’s bed and switched the overhead tactical display to the feed from the cruiser’s outside cameras. “There we are, my lord. Sleep well.”